Mustafa III

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Mustafa III (Ottoman Turkish: مصطفى ثالث Muṣṭafā-yi sālis) (January 28, 1717 – January 21, 1774) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1757 to 1774. He was a son of Sultan Ahmed III (1703–30) and was succeeded by his brother Abdülhamid I (1774–89). An energetic and perceptive ruler, Mustafa III sought to modernize the army and the internal state machinery to bring his empire in line with the Powers of Europe.

Unfortunately the Ottoman state had declined so far that any general attempts at modernization were but a drop in the ocean, while any major plans to change the administrative status quo immediately roused the conservative Janissaries and imams to the point of rebellion. Mustafa III did secure the services of foreign generals to initiate a reform of the infantry and artillery. The Sultan also ordered the founding of Academies for Mathematics, Navigation and the Sciences.

Well aware of his own military weakness, Mustafa III assiduously avoided war and was powerless to prevent the annexation of the Crimea by Catherine II of Russia (1762–96). However this action, combined with further Russian aggression in Poland compelled Mustafa III to declare war on St. Petersburg shortly before his death.

In a series of correspondence between prominent French thinker Voltaire and Catherine the Great, Mustafa III was consistently ridiculed, with Voltaire referring to him as "fat and ignorant".

Mustafa had two sons called Selim and Mohammed. He also had five daughters.

External links

• A more detailed profile of Mustafa III

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